Photographic processing is not a works contract where no customer property is incorporated by accretion or transfer of goods occurs.

Photographic activities such as taking snaps, developing, printing and enlarging photographs are outside the scope of a works contract under section 2(b) read with section 6D of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941 unless there is a transfer of property in goods involved in executing work on another's property. The article notes that article 366(29A)(b) and entry 54 cover only deemed sales to that limited extent. Where the studio uses its own film and materials, or processes customer negatives without altering or assimilating them, there is no incorporation by accretion or accession and no taxable works contract. Consumable chemicals do not alter that result.

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Issues: Whether the photographic activities of taking snaps, developing, printing and enlarging photographs constitute a works contract within section 2(b) read with section 6D of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, and are therefore exigible to tax under that provision.

Analysis: The statutory scheme taxes only a transfer of property in goods involved in the execution of a works contract. The constitutional amendment in article 366(29A)(b) expands the concept of deemed sale only to that extent, and the State power under entry 54 remains subject to that limitation. A works contract, in the relevant sense, presupposes goods or property belonging to the contractee on which the contractor works and into which materials supplied by the contractor are incorporated by accretion or accession. In photographic processing done with the studio's own film and materials, no property of the customer is worked upon. In developing and printing from customer-supplied negatives, the negative remains intact and is not altered, improved or assimilated by the materials used. Chemicals are consumed and lose their identity, while photographic paper used for the finished print does not establish a taxable transfer in the absence of the statutory indicia of a works contract.

Conclusion: The photographic transactions do not constitute works contract within section 2(b) and are not taxable under section 6D of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941.

Ratio Decidendi: Section 6D applies only where the contractor, in executing work on the property of another, effects a transfer of property in goods by incorporation or accretion to that property; photography done on the studio's own materials, or processing that leaves the customer's negative unaffected, is outside that rule.

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